Ruby and Amethyst
by Secondhand Soul
Summary: Just a one shot... possibly. Love is a strange thing, even more so for two who are as tainted as a fallen angel and a human ranch victim. One day, however, their bond will create the one thing the dying world longs for... Kranna.


All around they worked. Suntanned farmers with sleeves rolled back, and large brimmed hats to block the sun from their view, allowing them to work efficiently. They were, all of them, large men, strongly built with thick, sinewy necks. Out in that field there were even women working, though they seemed as unwieldy as the men who worked beside them. None of them, however, were ungainly, and seemed almost graceful as they planted seed and tilled soil. It had to be difficult, with the burning sun upon their backs, but none of them complained, and seemed tireless.

"Are you going to continue moving?" asked a voice, cold as a winter's breeze even underneath the intensity of the sun.

There, on the road beside the field, stood a man who was nearly the antithesis of the farmers in virtually every way imaginable.

He was tall, muscled, broad-shouldered, and straight backed, built like the perfect story book prince, though he certainly wasn't one; the farthest thing from it, in fact. He was striking. Skin as pale as the moon, and nearly as luminescent, covered a sharp featured face framed by a wild mane of shoulder length hair the color of red earth. If he had been a statue built of marble, his skin as cold and unyielding as that stone, his eyes would have been two rubies inlaid in the place where the soulless eyes would have been. His eyes seemed like those jewels, red as blood and attractive to look at, but lacking life and feeling, cold and imperial as a fortress. He moved like a lioness, not like a lumbering ox, graceful and sure of his steps, though silently, as if he were stalking his prey, ready to rise from the bushes and take his next meal by surprise. The man was lethal, with a sword at his side that cleaved the souls from the bodies of its victims, and was as deadly and detached as he.

"I'm coming," she responded with confidence, unafraid of the man or his sword, or even his scarlet eyes that seemed so inhuman.

He snorted; half amused, and continued to move on as the woman he had spoken to struggled to keep up with him.

She was different from both the man and the farmers.

She was petite and womanly, soft as the rolling hills of the Palmacosta region, her long and glossy umber hair making those hills sylvan. Her face was round covered in pale skin as soft as rose petals, her lips as full as a flower in bloom. Her eyes, unlike his, were full of exuberance and determination, amethyst violet but without the harsh quality of stone. She moved like a dog, excitedly trotting to keep up beside her impatient master, who had called her name after she'd stopped to sniff the ground. She was vulnerable, no weapons adorning her frame, no secrets evident behind her open smile. She seemed as content to follow him along that dusty road as she would have been to eat a filling meal and fall asleep in a downy bed.

She ran up beside him and took his hand, and for a moment his expression softened. He became human, staring down at her with love plain on his face.

Then he was a demi-god again, and he released her hand.

She hadn't noticed his expression, for it had passed before she could look up at his face, and when she did he was frowning in deep concentration.

"I'm sorry; I wasn't thinking when I did that," she apologized, quickly looking away from him; he couldn't help but notice the fine vermillion that tinged her cheeks.

"Don't worry about it," he dismissed, though he found his gaze lingering on her a fraction of a second longer than he would have liked.

Deep within, neither the man nor the woman was quite what they seemed.

Deep within they both harbored feelings for the other that they couldn't admit because of their circumstances, or wouldn't admit because of their fear of rejection.

She was not as gentle or as high-spirited as she seemed; no one could be after years of torture at the hands of monsters. She had been raped and beaten, on the verge of death several times, and the outlook she held of life was more sinister than she led most to believe. Her innocence had long ago been sapped from her by her captors, and only restored when the man who held her hear had freed her from her captivity. To him, she owed not just her life but the revival of her spirit.

He was impartial to most things, as he appeared to be, but was not entirely apathetic. Once, he had been noble, even valiant, but now he was only a shell, made empty by thousands of years of near solitude. At best, he was unstable; his mind corroded away, for the only company he kept was the company of the insane. He had lost his humanity, his soul, made into a mechanized shell only able to follow orders, but never to think for itself. To the woman he loved he owed the return of his old self, of the man he'd been so many years ago. He owed her his soul and his mind, made whole again trough he convincing, even if the realization had been nearly too painful to bear.

He had given to her the will to live.

She had thawed a heart encased in ancient ice.

They had saved one another.

Each had given the other a reason to search for redemption.

Each, though unwittingly, had given the other their heart.

It would be sometime before they were able to admit it, but they were in love. Their love would not be one without trials, however, for he held many secrets, deep and dark, stagnant as a black pool, and she was not entirely willing to trust a man, for they had hurt her so many times. But in the end their love would triumph, and their union would produce the one thing that the world had been crying out for countless millennia.

They would produce the savior that would regenerate the world.


End file.
